Albania’s parliament set on debating ex-spy files

TIRANA, Sep 1 – The Albanian parliament will discuss a bill, the lustration draft law, that seeks to open the files of the former communist secret service.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the governing Democratic Party has appealed to the opposition to join in passing the draft law.
There have been different options for the law as each political party has claimed various versions of the law are designed to harm them.
At the same time, former political prisoners doubt that the current political leaders are truly committed to opening up Albania’s dark past.
Albania is one of the few former communist countries that has yet to open the communist-era archives of its security services.
In another effort 13 years ago, a law established a standard that any top politician or official had to be checked for his past before applying for the job.
Many also say that the current political leadership has not been willing to open the files and has even destroyed files because they have their own links to the past.
In the last two years, a series of draft laws have been presented.
However, the parliament has yet to act on measures to open one of the darkest chapters of the country’s history.